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Reading and Math Scores Rise Sharply Across N.Y.

Reading and math scores for New York students in grades three through eight showed extraordinary gains across the state since last year, with particularly striking leaps in the large urban areas, including New York City.

The gains were apparent for nearly every grade tested in both subjects, in some cases with double-digit increases in the percentage of students performing at grade level or above, according to the scores on the annual statewide exams released by education officials on Monday.

The improvements were so substantial that several education experts expressed skepticism, noting that large gains were posted even by cities like Buffalo, whose schools have struggled for years.

They also said the statewide results were not in line with the relatively static performance of New York students in the most recent years on federal tests known as the nation’s report card.

In New York City, this year’s results had an added significance for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has staked his legacy on improving the city’s public schools and is likely to use the gains to argue next year that the State Legislature should reauthorize the law giving the mayor control of the schools.

The scores also will affect nearly every level of the system, with teachers and principals eligible for financial bonuses based on test results, and individual schools assigned letter grades based on student improvement.

Across New York State, 81 percent of students tested were at or above grade level in math, up from 73 percent last year, state education officials said. In reading, which has proved more difficult to improve, about 69 percent of students met or exceeded state standards for their grade level, up from 63 percent last year.

At a news conference in Albany, the state education commissioner, Richard P. Mills, called the results “encouraging and exciting,” saying they were evidence that the state’s emphasis on giving more money to poorer school districts and focusing on high standards was successful. “The schools have delivered,” he said.

The results in New York City have climbed steadily in the last two years. This year, 57.6 percent of students performed at or above grade level in reading, up from 50.7 percent in 2006, and 74.3 percent did so in math, up from 57 percent two years ago.

At Public School 175 in Harlem, Mr. Bloomberg declared that it was a “wonderful day for New York” and added that with a “dramatic upward trend” over the last six years, public schools in the city were now “in a different league.”

But the celebratory mood was tempered by the acknowledgment that 4 out of 10 students in the city were not reading at grade level. “It’s a time for celebration,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “It’s also a clarion call to show what you can do, and to get us to be more determined and to get everybody behind us to keep going ahead and not to try to find out what’s wrong, but to take what’s obviously right and build on it.”

But Andrew D. Ho, an assistant professor of educational statistics at the University of Iowa who has researched state and federal tests, said that while there was no question that students had improved substantially on New York’s exams, such gains were not mirrored in the national tests.

“They are on the order of what you might see in a 25-year trend on the national assessment,” Mr. Ho said. “Even the most pro-testing regime would have to admit there is a small component of inflation at the very least here.”

Other critics raised questions about whether the tests were easier this year. Michael J. Petrilli, a researcher at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Washington, said patterns of significant gains “can mean that they are teaching to the tests, and it’s also certainly possible that the tests got easier.”

Both Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Mills seemed to anticipate this kind of criticism.

Mr. Bloomberg emphasized the results over time, saying that the city had outpaced the rest of the state in improvement and that the gap in achievement between blacks and Latinos compared with whites had narrowed in the last several years.

Mr. Mills said the testing system had been reviewed by the federal Department of Education and had also been vetted by a group of outside experts. State education officials also provided a letter from federal officials stating that New York had an “assessment system that produces valid and reliable results.”

“For people who will say now that these results are going up, so it must be easier, look at the test yourself,” he said.

Mr. Mills also said the gains resulted from schools doing more to monitor student improvement throughout the year, like developing weekly tests or focusing on particular skills outlined in state standards.

Despite the overall improvement, results varied widely at different grade levels. In seventh-grade reading, for example, 70 percent of students statewide performed at or above grade level this year, up from 57.8 percent last year. But in the eighth grade, 56.1 percent of students performed at or above grade level this year, slightly down from 57 percent last year.

Mr. Mills attributed the differences to the design of the tests, saying that in third, fifth and seventh grades, students were asked to answer more multiple-choice questions and give short written responses, rather than longer essays.

There were similar differences in the city, where the percentage of seventh graders reading at or above grade level increased to 59.5 percent, from 45.4 percent last year. But in eighth grade, the percentage of students reading at grade level or above rose less than two points, to 43 percent from 41.8 percent.

The state also emphasized the decline in the level of students performing at the lowest levels, down to 4.1 percent in reading this year, compared with 8.1 percent in 2006. In math, the percentage of students at the lowest level dropped to 4.7 percent this year, from 11.1 percent in 2006.

And while that pattern was also true in New York City, the percentage of students scoring at the highest level was far less drastic and, in fact, declined for the fifth, sixth and seventh grades in reading and in third-grade math.

The city results were also inconsistent with the scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, given by the federal Department of Education. The federal scores, released late last year, showed little to no improvement in fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math in both New York City and the state in the last several years. If the federal scores were stagnant, critics said, it seemed unlikely that the state scores would increase so much.

Mr. Mills and Mr. Klein have both repeatedly said that the national test is less comprehensive because not all students are required to take it, and it is not aligned with state curriculums.

But some education experts have suggested that national tests are important to provide a uniform standard and an independent assessment for states.

“The difficulty of the test can bounce around from year to year naturally,” Mr. Petrilli said. “And certainly it is hard to do when the politics are that we want to see big improvements. When it’s a state grading itself, there is always reason to be concerned.”

Robert Gebeloff and Elissa Gootman contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Scores in Reading and Math Rise Sharply Across the State. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe